Although, let’s be honest: We haven’t seen the Mad Russian mad yet. Whenever Mikhail Prokhorov checks in with his Brooklyn Nets he is generally affable and good-natured, looking like just another fan with an expensive hobby. He seems forever in a fine mood.

And, sure: It’s possible Prokhorov got a kick out of watching Jason Kidd try to flex his muscles last week, in the same way Sean Connery as Irish Jim Malone smilingly sneered at one of his would-be assassins in “The Untouchables,” “Isn’t that just like [an Italian]? Brings a knife to a gunfight.”

It’s more likely that Prokhorov is peeved, that Mikhail is miffed, that he would take great delight in flying to JFK, driving to Brooklyn, climbing to the roof and removing the No. 5 Kidd jersey that flies with the others, with Dr. J’s and Drazen Petrovic’s and Bill Melchionni’s, and take a Zippo lighter to it.

That won’t solve anything.

But it would probably make him feel a lot better.

Really, though, Kidd has done more damage to himself than any member of his ever-growing enemies list could do to him. Kidd is on a far more exclusive list, one that will only include nine names at any one time. We have nine teams in Greater New York, and each of them has a face. We can quibble over one or two of them, but generally most would acknowledge these as the Nifty Nine:

Ruth, Seaver, Namath.

Taylor, Trottier, Messier.

Brodeur, Frazier. And Kidd.

Franchise faces aren’t perfect. When the games end and the cheering stops, they don’t always cover themselves in glory. Lawrence Taylor has had a laundry list of issues that have landed him in dark, desperate places. Joe Namath got good and drunk on national TV one time, told Suzy Kolber he wanted to kiss her, and even as he’s embraced sobriety he still answers for that one.

Mark Messier had a couple of less than amicable breaks with the Rangers. Bryan Trottier had some publicized financial problems. Mostly, these icons, when they’ve stumbled, have done so for the most understandable of reasons: They are human. They make mistakes. They answer for them. They move on.

But none of them have willfully tried to mangle their legacies, the way Kidd has. None of them have dared the same fans they used to thrill to despise them — or, worse, to try to forget them.

It was graceless enough the way Kidd left the franchise the first time, after engineering the firing of Byron Scott, after calling in sick for work one night when the only thing wrong with him was a surly disposition, after obstinately insisting the Nets grant him exile in Los Angeles before settling for Dallas. But even then: He was an athlete, and athletes are forever forgiven their clumsy behavior.

Kidd II is something else altogether, an absolutely blind power grab that completely ignores the fact the only reason Kidd got the job here in the first place is because of the royal place he has in the Nets’ team history (which, admittedly, is akin to being the best chef in a freshman dorm).

It was always an uncomfortable balancing act. The Nets knew better than anyone else what a challenge Kidd was — at best, call it “quirky,” at worst call it sociopathic — and could well have said: “Thanks for the memories. See you when we raise the jersey.” They did not. They hired him, and snickered at how they may have stolen him clean away from the Knicks, and rejoiced in the attendant publicity and then watched Kidd act as a coach with every ounce of the stubbornness he displayed as a player.

And then some. Now, they answer for that stunning lack of wisdom.

Maybe a few years in Midwestern exile will change things; Roger Clemens is welcome in Boston now, after all. Time heals wounds, time steals resentment, time can be a remarkable salve. But how much time will Kidd need to recuperate his image with the Nets?

Maybe he can keep his calendar clear for 2044.

In the meantime? Prokhorov grew up in Soviet Russia. He knows how the State used to “edit” its history books. Maybe the number stays. But it’s safe to say Jason Kidd may soon become the first icon in NBA history to become a non-person.